Monday, 4 July 2016

World Cup 2018 to go ahead in Russia - Infantino

In spite of scrutiny over controversial workers
rights, the 2018 World Cup will be staged in Russia as planned,
according to Sepp Blatter's successor

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has confirmed the 2018 World Cup will go ahead in Russia.
The country's right to host the tournament had come under scrutiny
after a corruption scandal engulfed world football's governing body,
raising the prospect of the controversial bids to stage the 2018 and
2022 tournaments being re-examined.
Russian sport has been the subject of an investigation into
allegations of widespread doping, while human rights issues and regional
instability have also prompted concerns about the location of FIFA's
next showpiece event.
But Infantino, visiting the country after being elected as Sepp
Blatter's successor in February, has insisted the tournament will go
ahead as planned and is determined to ensure it is the "best World
Cup ever".
"The World Cup 2018 will take place in Russia of course," he said. "This decision has been taken six years ago almost.
"It is now my job as FIFA president, together with [Russian Sports]
Minister [Vitaly] Mutko and all the Russian population actually to make
sure we deliver the best World Cup ever here in Russia."
Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova has been suspended from the sport
after testing positive for banned substance meldonium, but Mutko is
adamant the football spectacle will not be affected by concerns about
performance-enhancing drugs.
"You know there has been a lot of talk about meldonium and doping
issues, I would like to say that this in no way affects preparations for
the World Cup and will not affect it, there is no doubt about this," he
said.
"Secondly, football - in the last few years we collected over two
thousand tests from our footballers and overall there were only three
instances of violations. So it is not at all typical in football."
Infantino also took the opportunity to further distance himself from
the so-called Panama Papers - the leak of millions of confidential files
from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca - insisting it is a
"non-story" because everything was carried out "legally".
"I think it has already been clarified quite clearly that this story
about these Panama papers was absolutely a non-story because everything
was done completely legally, properly, transparently, openly, and this
has already been said," he said of being connected with the reports,
which have focused on the use of offshore shell companies to facilitate
tax avoidance.

"Actually, some journalists have already apologised to me, so I would
like to thank those journalists for apologising to me for having
written things which were a little bit exaggerated, so I don't think at
all that this will have any impact on what I'm doing.